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  Dead Reckoning

  Caitlin Rother

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  Newly updated, the true story of a retired couple, a coldblooded killer, and the controversial aftermath: “A gripping read.” —Aphrodite Jones, host of True Crime for Investigation Discovery Network   Tom and Jackie Hawks loved their life in retirement, sailing on their yacht, the Well Deserved. But when the birth of a new grandson called them back to Arizona, they put the boat up for sale. Skylar Deleon and his pregnant wife, Jennifer, showed up as prospective buyers, with their baby in a stroller, and the Hawkses thought they had a deal. Soon after, however, the older couple disappeared—and the Deleons promptly tried to access the Hawkses’s bank accounts. As police investigated, they not found not only a third homicide victim with ties to Skylar, but an unusual motive: Skylar had wanted gender reassignment surgery for years. By killing the Hawkses and plundering their assets, the Deleons planned to clear their $100,000 in debts and still have money for the already-scheduled surgery. Now, in this updated edition, which includes extensive new material, New York Times–bestselling author Caitlin Rother presents new developments in the case. Skylar, who was sentenced to death row for the three murders, transitioned via hormones while living in the San Quentin psych unit. Recently, she legally changed her name and gender, apparently a strategic step to obtain taxpayer-subsidized gender confirmation surgery and transfer to a women’s prison. Combined with Governor Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions, this only adds insult to injury for the victims’ families, who want Skylar to receive the ultimate punishment for her crimes.   “Well researched and a quick, engrossing read, this should be popular with true crime readers, especially the Ann Rule crowd.” —Library Journal

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  The Tower Princess

  Michelle Tocher

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  A fairy tale lived. A wise, humorous, poignant memoir that shows how fairy tales can be healing. The author changes her narrative of chronic pain by delving into the story of Rapunzel. Reader beware: this is no Disney-escape fairy-fluff. A marriage of personal and mythic storylines that reveals deep truths through mythic imagination and the perspective of fairy godmothers. A memoir filled with treasure that we can all claim, especially in hard times.

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  Former drug users work on the...

  PBS NewsHour

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  They visit overdose victims in the hospital. They hand out lifesaving drugs on the streets and educate their peers about their own relapses. In Rhode Island, former drug addicts are the most valuable fighters on the front lines of the war against opioids. William Brangham reports as part of our series, America Addicted.

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  Dying to Meet You: Confessions...

  Angjolie Mei

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  Why would someone leave a shining career in management to work among the dead? 
   
  Angjolie Mei, funeral director and "life celebrant", recounts how the death of her father—a veteran known as ‘The Coffin King’ in the funeral industry—prompted this dramatic choice.       
   
  What exactly happens during embalming? What kind of post-death restoration is needed for second-degree burn victims? What are the little-known facts surrounding suicide in Singapore? 
   
  Angjolie offers the insider’s view on these and other aspects of an industry usually shrouded in mystery, and reflects on how her perceptions of death, and life, have changed since she chose this extraordinary profession.

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  Aldous Huxley George Orwell

  Geoffrey Giuliano

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  A deep dive into the heart and mind of both Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.The greatest contributions to the tradition of dystopian fiction are two defining masterpieces from the 20th century, both of them bestsellers at the time and ever since: Aldous Huxley’s 1932 Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four. The two dystopias have many details in common. Both writers saw a future shaped by weapons of mass destruction — biological and chemical weapons in Huxley’s case, nuclear war in Orwell’s. They agreed about the danger of permanent social stratification, with humanity divided into categories determined by biological engineering and psychological conditioning (Huxley) or traditional class combined with totalitarian loyalty systems (Orwell). Both men imagined future societies completely obsessed with sex, though in diametrically opposite ways: state-enforced repression and celibacy in the case of Orwell; deliberate, narcotizing promiscuity in the case of Huxley. Both men thought the future would be dominated by America. Both men thought that future governments would spend a lot of effort permanently trying to incite economic consumption — not that either man thought of anything as wildly fantastical as quantitative easing. Both began their books with a short sentence designed to signal a world that was familiar but also disconcertingly futuristic “ Here are both literary giants in their own bold words!

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  Around the Way Girl - A Memoir

  Taraji P. Henson

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  From Taraji P. Henson, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe winner, and star of the award-winning film Hidden Figures and the 2023 film The Color Purple, comes an inspiring and funny memoir—“a bona fide hit” (Essence)—about family, friends, the hustle required to make it in Hollywood, and the joy of living your own truth.With a sensibility that recalls her beloved screen characters, including Katherine, the NASA mathematician, Yvette, Queenie, Shug, and the iconic Cookie from Empire, Taraji P. Henson writes of her family, the one she was born into and the one she created. She shares stories of her father, a Vietnam vet who was bowed but never broken by life’s challenges, and of her mother who survived violence both at home and on DC’s volatile streets. Here, too, she opens up about her experiences as a single mother, a journey some saw as a burden but which she saw as a gift.Around the Way Girl is also a classic actor’s memoir in which Taraji reflects on the world-class instruction she received at Howard University and how she chipped away, with one small role after another, at Hollywood’s resistance to give women, particularly women of color, meaty significant roles. With laugh-out-loud humor and candor, she shares the challenges and disappointments of the actor’s journey and shows us that behind the red carpet moments, she is ever authentic. She is at heart just a girl in pursuit of her dreams in this “inspiring account of overcoming adversity and a quest for self-discovery, written with vitality and enthusiasm” (Shelf Awareness).

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